


of flowers and ink

by choose_joy



Series: in every lifetime [3]
Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: F/F, Flower Symbolism, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:20:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27352612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/choose_joy/pseuds/choose_joy
Summary: azu's got the most beautiful tattoos.not that sasha's noticed, or anything.
Relationships: Azu/Sasha Racket
Series: in every lifetime [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1992436
Comments: 8
Kudos: 21





	of flowers and ink

One of the first things that Sasha notices about Azu is the sheer number of tattoos she has. Little ones on her fingers in the shapes of stars, grand sweeping floral sleeves in colors so bright it seems magical, a tiny camel behind her ear...

They’re beautiful.  _ She’s  _ beautiful. Not that Sasha would ever be able tell her that to her face, of course.

They’ve been friends for ages now-- met at a party at Feryn and Oscar’s, where Azu was trying to drunkenly crawl out onto the fire escape that Sasha was occupying. Helping Azu out onto the deck soon turned into pointing out all the constellations Azu could see through the cloud cover turned into Sasha haltingly launching into a story about her and Brock seeing how much candy they could lift from the buckets set out for trick-or-treaters. 

They become fast friends after that, despite Sasha’s insistence on keeping certain points of her life secret, not that Azu can’t infer enough to understand why Sasha isn’t quite as forthcoming.

So, it's a regular occurrence to find the two together, especially on nights when Sasha looks a little  _ too  _ haggard for comfort. Azu’s gotten good at not asking questions, and Sasha’s gotten better at trusting Azu not to stab her in the back (the fact that she’s willing to take off her jacket in Azu’s flat is not at all lost on her).

It's one of these nights that the two find themselves watching the Paranormal Activity series-- Azu lying on the couch, and Sasha curled up in the armchair that Azu may or may not have specifically purchased after Sasha mentioned always wanting one. They’re well into the second movie when Sasha says, suddenly: “What do your tattoos mean?”

“Oh!” says Azu, “Well, some of them don’t mean anything aside from thinking that they were pretty, but my favorite is my camel? I used to have a camel named Topaz when I lived in Kenya, and I obviously couldn’t bring her with me to London, so I got a little reminder of her right here,” at which point, she points to the little spot behind her left ear. 

“Right,” replies Sasha, “That’s proper cool, huh?”

Azu’s answering smile could blind the sun.

They go on like this for a while, Azu explaining the history behind each of her tattoos, and Sasha interjecting with similar comments that, from anyone else, would sound polite at best. (Luckily, Azu’s learned how to read Sasha, and knows how big a step this is for her.)

It's much, much later that evening when Sasha brings up tattoos again. 

“So, uh...” she starts, “If I were to get a tattoo, what d’you think you’d put on me?”

If Azu nearly chokes on her Diet Coke. “I thought you didn’t want any? Made you too recognizable?”

That was clearly the wrong answer, because Sasha’s face closes off a bit as she responds: “Right, uh, nevermind then.”

“No, no! I just-- oh dear, hold on,” Azu says, leaping up from the couch and running to the bookshelf on the other side of the room. She pulls down a slim sketchbook, frantically flipping through the pages before landing on one. “Here, uh... I may have designed a few with you in mind.”

Sasha wordlessly takes the sketchbook, running her hands across the sketches. There’s one of an ornate medieval dagger in full black and white, another of the London skyline silhouetted by the evening sky and reflected in a lake, and another of...

“What do these flowers mean, Azu?” she asks, fingers tracing the delicate lines.

“Oh! Well, these yellow ones here are gladiolus, which symbolize strength, and then these puffy white ones are chrysanthemums, which mean, um, loyalty.”

“What about these red ones?” Sasha asks, a bit more quietly.

Azu’s face burns a deep shade of pink before she stutters out her response: “Those are tulips. They’re... they mean... ‘I declare my love’.”

The room is completely silent for a moment before Azu begins to stutter loudly once again. “Not that-- it’s just-- you don’t have to say it back, I’m so sorry, I don’t want to make you--”

And then Sasha kisses her.

It's a quick peck. In the grand scheme of kisses in the world, it's probably one of the most chaste ones Azu’s ever had.

It is also the best.

**Author's Note:**

> did i base azu's love of the paranormal activity series on helen's? yes. yes i did.
> 
> this work is the second installment in my series "in every lifetime", a bunch of rqg-centric au drabbles for a number of groupings (both romantic and platonic), tied together under the guise of "soulmates" (which you can read about in my intro work). i plan on writing quite a few, but if you have any prompts that you'd like to see, i'm always happy to chat! i'm @choose__joy on twitter and thisisadingdongblog on tumblr!


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